1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to the installation of tiled counters in locations such as bathrooms and kitchens.
2. Background
At present, the installation of tiled counters is a messy, often difficult and time consuming work project, even when performed by experienced professionals. After the tiles have been selected and cost estimated, a skilled tile-setter has to come to the work site (kitchen or bathroom) and do the work. This work involves the use of many materials such as mortar, sheetrock or cement board, thinset and grout, leaving bits and pieces to be cleaned up.
The workmanship and quality of the installed counter is subject to the skill of the tile-setter, which is usually unknown to a homeowner at the time of contracting. If the homeowner finds the work to be shoddy or otherwise unsatisfactory, a dispute can arise that may be difficult to settle amicably. For builders who install counters in newly built houses, the problem is one of quality control as well as the installation time and cost. At present, even the smallest counter would take two days to complete.
Normally, a tile for a counter is first selected by the customer before installation and the customer must attempt to visualize what the completed product will look like. Such judgements are not easily made, sometimes leading to negative results where both customer and installer are disaffected, in this case, the customer usually has no choice but to live with the resulting installation although it may be unsatisfactory.
At present, even the smallest counter would take at least two days to complete by professional installers, causing unwelcome irradiation of homeowners. This installation time and cost is even more important in commercial applications.
There have been a number of approaches to casing the problems and difficulties inherent in the time honored methods of installing tiled counters and walls for a bathroom and kitchen. Some involve pre-fabrication of various parts. However, all still require considerable tiling work to be performed by a skilled person at the installation site. An example is a recently issued U.S. Pat. No. 5,816,005 by Han, who describes a pre-fabricated tiled panel.
For installing on a counter or wall, the panels have to be individually placed on a counter base or wall surface and each fastened in place before adding the next panel until all are completed. A number of tiles are left off each panel to allow for fastening the panel to a base or wall. The panel edge trim is also generally omitted from the prefabricated panel.
While the Han approach described above is definitely an improvement on the current industry wide methods, it still requires the services of a skilled tile setter on site to install and properly join the panels. He must also install the missing tiles described above and other tiling such as edge trim; all of which has to be done on site, leaving a mess to be cleaned up. Furthermore, the Han approach does not permit a customer to see what a finished counter will look like before installation and before the customer commits to a tiled configuration.
There remains a universal need by homeowners and building contractors to overcome the ongoing problems of cost, quality control, customer inconvenience and possible dissatisfaction that are inherent in the current methods of installing a tiled counter or other tiled portion.
The invention is a complete pre-fabricated tile counter top that is already tiled and grouted and ready for installation upon a cabinet or other substructure, with or without a back splash or side splash panel. The counter top and any splash panels would be done in any style, shape and tile desired and selected by a customer and could include sinks. No tiling of any sort need be done on the installation site. The counter top and splash panels can be produced economically and installed quickly on site, in a neat and orderly manner, requiring little installation skill.
One embodiment of the present invention is a prefabricated counter top for mounting on a cabinet and including at least one laminated substrate body having a base board member and a surface board member with a layer of adhesive sandwiched therebetween. The substrate body includes a top surface and at least one edge surface coated with an adhesive to which tiles are adhered thereto. The substrate body further includes a bottom surface for complementally mounting on the cabinet. After assembly, such counter top is transportable to the cabinet site to be installed thereon.
In another embodiment, a single layer slab is provided and includes a top surface and an edge surface coated with an adhesive to which tiles are directly adhered thereto. Such slab is typically formed of either a rigid foam polystyrene or rigid plastic material.
In yet another embodiment, a plurality of prefabricated counter top sections is provided to form a multi-sectional elongated counter top and a method for joining these sections is also described herein.
Embodiments of the invention can provide a complete, prefabricated tile counter plus splash panels capable of being installed easily and quickly by relatively unskilled persons. Furthermore, embodiments can provide a complete tiled counter that can be viewed by a customer prior to installation.
With advantage embodiments of the invention can also provide a complete tiled counter than can be produced in any shape, design, and tile color that meets a customer""s requirement and preference.
Compared with existing methods, embodiments of the invention can be implemented at considerably lower costs with the further advantage of minimal installation time and minimal disruption at the installation site.
Another object is to provide a complete tiled counter that can be viewed by a customer prior to installation.
Yet another object is to provide a complete tiled counter that can produced in any shape, design and tile color that meets a customer""s requirement and preference.
A major advantage of this invention over existing methods is its considerably lower cost.
Another advantage is its minimal installation time and thus minimal disruption at an installation site.
Further objects and advantages of the invention will be apparent from studying the following portion of the specification, the claims and the attached drawings.